Bots- Friend Or Foe?

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Ah the internet, what a wonderful place. Or is it?

With the rise of social media and the interconnectedness of everything, we have all become accustomed to this new lifestyle of having to check our phone every few minutes. So what’s the next logical step?

Bots, of course!

Bots are simply a software application that runs automated tasks over and over on the Internet- this solves the problem of needing to hire people for mundane jobs over and over.

But at what cost?

Bots are generally better at repeating specific tasks and it’s proven to be more efficient as well, but over the years bots have gotten smarter and smarter. Remember when chatting with Cleverbot was so amazing because it was unheard of before?

Well not anymore.

Nowadays, most huge international companies would just use bots as intermediaries for mundane tasks such as registering for an event, speaking from personal experience here* But as bots get smarter, and people always looking to take advantage of them.

A new form of trouble has surfaced. What could it be?

Spam bots.

Or in this case, fake Facebook accounts who add you out of nowhere. Have you experienced that recently? You’re going about your day and suddenly you get multiple friend notifications and it’s from “people” who you don’t know? When you click of the profile it’s usually an account made a few days ago as well. There was even one incident in which someone I new clicked on one of those profiles and on their wall was nothing but porn (yikes!).

And with scammers upping their game, who’s to say what’s real and what’s not?

Those unfortunate enough to fall into these traps quickly find out the true dangers that these bots do, such as spamming malicious links to your friends without your consent, sometimes before you can even figure out what’s happening. And the worst part? Soon as your friends click on the link, they get infected as well and the vicious cycle continues.

So how would one stay safe from these bots?

The best thing to do is to report these pages or profiles that you deem suspicious, then protect your life by keeping your firewall updated to ensure that your computer is protected. Next, it doesn’t hurt to avoid suspicious links sent to you by your friends, as your friends wouldn’t message you with weird messages out of nowhere or ask you “hey, give me your number please.” It is best to keep an eye out for these telltale signs, as it could mean the safety of your data versus embarrassing stories.